Thinking With the Body | How Philosophy and Tai Chi Can Reconnect Mind and Flesh

Das sagt der/die Veranstalter:in:

Overview

⏱️ Schedule: Doors 18:30 → Talk 19:00 → Q&A → Mingle
🌐 Language: English

We've turned philosophy into something we do with our heads. Sitting. Reading. Thinking. But for most of human history, philosophy wasn't a spectator sport—it was a full-body practice. Something you lived, not just understood.

Somewhere along the way, Western thought divorced mind from body. And now we optimize, track, and hack our bodies like machines—while feeling increasingly disconnected from them. What if the path forward isn't more thinking, but less? What if transformation requires not self-improvement, but self-exposure—putting who we think we are at risk?

This talk explores how we can reconnect thinking with sensation, breath, and embodied awareness through ancient practices that ground philosophy in the body itself.

Together, we'll explore:

• How Western philosophy became progressively disembodied—and why we now "do" philosophy with our brains instead of living it through our bodies.

• What was lost: The body as a site of knowledge and experimentation. Theory once meant transformation, risk, and direct experience—not just interpreting the world, but being changed by it.

• Paths back to the body: Tai Chi and other embodied practices can reopen this forgotten dimension of philosophy and reconnect thinking with sensation, breath, and embodied awareness.

• How different practices can loosen, ground, stabilize, and reorganize our sense of self; Tai Chi can ground, stabilize, and reorganize what remains. What would it mean to think from the whole body again?

• "Risking the self" as an alternative to self-optimization culture: The goal is not self-improvement, but self-exposure—discovering that who we are is not fixed, but something that can be felt, shifted, and transformed.

Speaker

Diego Agulló

Diego Agulló is an independent researcher and artist working at the intersection of art and philosophy, mainly in contemporary dance and performance. He studied philosophy and has lived in Berlin since 2005. His work spans dance, performance, books, video art, and daily Qigong/Tai Chi trainings. Diego is the co-founder of the independent publishing house Circadian, where he has published six books.